Matt Sydal Talks Having Creative Freedom in Impact Wrestling

X-Division Champion, Matt Sydal, will defend his title this Sunday at Slammiversary against Brian Cage. He recently sat down with the Sporting News and discussed why having creative freedom as a performer is important.

“We’re creating an ethereal consciousness during the match,” explained Sydal. “There’s a symbiotic relationship that we’re co-creating together and I want them feeling the same mystical experience that I am going through simultaneously. I just am trying to do more. It’s easy to go out there and wrestle. It’s hard to go out there and try new things, to create an atmosphere.”

Sydal would continue to say that recent developments in the pro-wrestling landscape have reinvigorated his love for wrestling.

“Wrestling used to be like this — it was this bathtub that we will fill up from only one faucet,” Sydal said. “It was mainly WWE filling the tub of love of wrestling for the entire world. And because of the internet, technology, the interconnectedness of people and the desire of independent artists to create their own work, this resurgence of wrestling has come up and it’s reinvigorating for me.”

Sydal continued to say what he feels is different about today’s wrestling. “Now the bathtub of wrestling that we’re trying to fill up to the brim with water — it has a WWE faucet, it’s got a New Japan faucet, IMPACT Wrestling, some of these hotter indies, WWN, Evolve, Progress. It’s getting filled from everywhere and all of the water is warm and everybody’s saying come on in and take a bath with us because this is some good, clean fun.”

Sydal will take on a much larger opponent on Sunday. Brian Cage is a heavyweight wrestler who utilizes an X-division style move-set.

“Someone like Brian Cage, he’s a gigantic man who is trying to wrestle like me,” explained Sydal. “That’s his mistake because I clearly hold the top card in someone who is wrestling like Matt Sydal. I see things from a higher perspective. I can know what Brian Cage is doing before he’s doing it because he’s doing me. I’ve been facing the man in the mirror my entire life. That’s been my hardest battle is the one where it’s me versus me.”